Fonterra Cooperative Group won't be changing its ownership structure, but is keen on bringing on partners to fund future projects, says director Scott St John.
The Auckland-based company's capital structure has been criticised as making it too hard to raise equity and led to a poor track record of adding value from investments, with one of its harshest critiques coming from First NZ Capital analyst Arie Dekker.
Units in the Fonterra Shareholders' Fund, which gives investors exposure to the cooperative's earnings stream, fell to a three-year low last week after the dairy company's board trimmed its forecast payout to farmers and said it probably won't pay a final dividend.
Fonterra director St John, a former chief executive of FNZC, put forward the dairy company's case to the New Zealand Shareholders' Association annual meeting in Auckland today, saying the payout cut was a tough decision, but "the right call to make" and one he would do again.
He gave a potted history of the 17-year-old company, saying its growing expansion in China and successful development of higher value food ingredients products showed it had been successful.
